


there's no place like home

by lady_laverty



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (please take this seriously), Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, Human Experimentation, Medical Experimentation, Military Inaccuracies, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Torture, dont take this seriously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 02:27:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1452151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_laverty/pseuds/lady_laverty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James "Bucky" Buchanan Barnes is 27 years old, married and has a son. He has a happy life, on his second tour of Afghanistan and prospects when he gets home.</p>
<p>Too bad nobody told the bad guys this before they started experimenting on him.</p>
<p>
  <i>AU in which Bucky is Steve's dad and Arnim Zola is still a massive ass wipe in any reality.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's no place like home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Technicolourcity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Technicolourcity/gifts).



> Okay so before we start. This is an AU my friend and I came up with earlier tonight and I had to write it. 
> 
> We see Bucky being brotherly and almost paternal in his actions towards Steve, so why not actually make him Steve's father?
> 
> (This is all sound reasoning to my sleep deprived mind.)

_No ax has seen these woods since before your father stood,_   
_The path is beaten good from the feet of all who wandered through it._   
_Old growth, holds hope, let the brambles scrape your skin,_   
_Scars are storybooks, the blood will wash away your sins._   
_Now let that sun slip, then let that moon rise,_   
_Follow in no footsteps, listen for the true guides._   
_Woods will play tricks upon pretty blue eyes._   
_Is that glimmer the river, or your village finally brought back to life?_

The River, The Woods - **Astronautalis**

* * *

 

 

He’s counting backwards and forwards in his head, repeating his name and serial number as he pictures his son. Happy little Stevie that had turned 5 just a few weeks ago, giggling and happy to see him on the single skype call he gets a week. He hides them, hides the treasure trove of little moments that he gets with his son when Peggy can get through and he’s not on a mission or rotation when his turn for the skype call comes up. Thinking about his son gets him through the bad times, when he’s on a mission sleeping in terrorist crawling areas and knowing he’s doing this for his son, to give _him_ a future.

It’s all for Stevie, with his sunny smile despite the steadily growing medical problems that Peggy has a surprisingly firm hand on. He still gets his month letters, with photos that he shares with Sam Wilson, his best friend and Steve’s godfather, who laughs when there’s a little pose in them that is _so_ Sam that sometimes he wonders if he’s actually Sam’s kid.

He doesn’t know where Sam is, all he knows is that they got his unit and all he wants is to go _home_.

_“Daddy!”_

No, no, no, he couldn’t be here. They _did_ things to him. Stevie couldn’t see him like this. He would never forgive himself if they got Stevie. He would rather be dead than see that happen—

_“Daddy, you have to get up!”_

An explosion rattles through him, shaking him out of the reverie he was in, a blissful lack of environmental noticing. It was perfect, really, his lack of noticing anything but the little world he’d created, nestled in the memories of his son.

He shakes his arms and the cuffs are undone and the rumbling’s getting louder. It sounds like someone’s setting off a goddamn rocket in the place but he wouldn’t be surprised if it was; knowing what Arnim Goddamn Zola was doing in this godforsaken abandoned factory. He drags himself onto his feet and towards the door of the room. His left arm is numb, but the hysterical sense of needing to escape this hellhole took over. The door is unlocked and ajar, as if someone had left quickly and without thinking, and he takes his chances.

There are men everywhere, in American uniforms, and there’s Sam rushing towards him and he’s on his knees sobbing because he’s going home. Back to that yellow little house on that homely little street with a picket fence and it’s all too much.

He’s going home to his son and nothing is going to stop him from seeing him. Not even a neo-Nazi scientist bastard who decided that James Buchanan Barnes would fit _nicely_ into his new master race.

 

* * *

 

Peggy Carter is not a woman prone to overt emotional reactions. She’s more of a compartmentalise and deal with later kind of woman, but she had an overt emotional reaction when she got a call from Sam Wilson, lovable and perpetually laughing Sam Wilson, say that they had found James. She collapsed onto the ground and thanked god that her son hadn’t had to say goodbye to his father from the outside of a closed coffin, hadn’t had to receive that American flag. It would have killed her.

She thanked god that he was well enough to go to school with a smile on his face without having to worry about him having an asthma attack the moment he’s out of her sight. She considers picking him up from school, but she would rather make it a surprise, to have him meet his father on the runway when he gets home and watch the smile light up his face like it’s Christmas day.

She has things to do, plans to make and all the while waiting to welcome James home like the hero he is.

 

* * *

 

Bucky jolts out of sleep, hand searching for his service weapon, the lingering effects of his nightmare warping his view of the world. Engines are crooning in the distance and Sam’s steady gaze is soothing. Yes, he’s on a transport back stateside, honourably discharged from his tour of Afghanistan 2 years early, on his way home.

He reorientates himself from _then_ to _now._ His clothing is too scratchy and his dog tags burn his skin and he desperately tries to change his train of thought. What does Steve look like now? Has his hair darkened, like both his parents or is it still blonde like Peggy’s mother’s hair? Does he still have those antique toy soldiers on his window sill, a present from him for his fourth birthday, to protect him? Or has he grown up, grown away from him in the time that he was away, MIA and presumed dead? He hopes not. Hopes he’s still a little boy that needs him as much as he needs his son.

He hopes for a lot of things.

He wipes angrily at his eyes, angry at himself. Of course his son would remember him, it had been months not years and Steve doesn’t forget easily. He must be making noises because Sam’s there, suddenly.

“Buck, I know it’s hard, but let me tell you Stevie is going to be so happy to see you man. He’s been asking for you and demanding to be sent over to help find you. Peggy caught him trying to get out in the middle of the night a few times, bag all packed. Damn near broke her heart and mine, so don’t go crying on me now, man, you’re nearly there. Cry when you see how tall your son’s gotten okay?” Sam speaks gently as he places a firm hand on Bucky’s shoulder, reassuring him of his steady presence and perfect advice.

“How do you manage to have the answer for _everything_ , Sam? Did you trade your soul for infinite knowledge like in Steve’s comic books?” He laughs as he wipes his jacket am across his face, eyes stinging from the tears that are in the middle of falling down his face. “Man, wouldn’t that be something, Stevie’s comic books coming to life. Captain Amazing would probably be a better father than me.”

Sam stares more and sighs, that deep sigh, that says he’s going to whoop someone’s ass, no matter who it is and who they are to him.

 

* * *

 

There’s a squeal as he walks down the ramp of the jet and he’s suddenly got arms full of boy. He’s not even off the plane before Peggy’s hurrying over with a concerned expression on her face but when she spots him it melts. He presses his face into the shoulders of his son and allows some emotion to slip through because this? This is what kept him sane through months of torture. This little boy who’s clinging to him like moss to a rock, little legs wrapped around his torso and little hands wrapping themselves in the small amount of hair at the nape of his neck like he did when he was a baby. He leans back and stares into the sky, the blue sky that he will never have to wonder whether or not he will ever see again.

“Stevie, oh Stevie,” he’s crying now, tears of happiness, of sadness, of all emotions really, he can’t control them anymore. He’s weeping for his son, who never saw hide or hair of him for years outside of skype calls.

“Have you been a good boy for your mamma, like I told you to be?” A small nod against his shoulder is the only answer he gets and he engulfs Peggy in their hug. He’s too emotional and entwined in his reunited family to notice the knowing smile that Sam shares with a suited man.

He’s just so happy. So happy to be alive to do this.


End file.
